Vaccine hesitancy and Autism

[IknowThisIsRidiculous]

NC for this as I... er...know this is ridiculous. Apologies in advance for the length.

Background: My DS is almost 20. He was a baby and due the MMR around the time of the Andrew Wakefield scandal. My exH had health anxiety and was paranoid about all the MMR/Autism stuff so we didn't give him the MMR but went with single jabs. Then at the age of 10 he was going on a school trip to France, needed to have had the MMR as there was an outbreak of measles in France at the time so I gave him the booster (we were NC with ex by that time).

Fast forward: around the age of 15/16 I started to think that my DS may be on the spectrum due to some of the characteristics that were becoming stronger (classic ASC traits) and started to do some research. Nothing had ever been raised at school or by any childcarers (he's high functioning). I tried to discuss it with him but he dismissed it and that was the end of the subject.

Fast forward again to now. For various reasons, DS has come to the conclusion that he is on the spectrum (I agree). He has done an online assessment which has confirmed to him that there is a "high probability" but he doesn't (yet) want to consider getting a diagnosis. He has really struggled with Covid and is completely against getting the vaccine (he's got sucked into the anti-vax conspiracy) and while doing his research he has come across the Andrew Wakefield/Autism/Vaccine information.

Now here's the question: DS is convinced that having the MMR at 10 'gave' him Autism as the 'symptoms' didn't really become obvious until he was well into his teens. I've told him that that's not the case as he definitely had the characteristics before the age of 10 but I just didn't know enough about it at that stage. BUT - I'm struggling to convince him of this as I'm not convinced myself that he did.

Has anyone else's ASC DC only displayed traits in their teens?

ps. I don't for one minute believe the Andrew Wakefield stuff.

I don't see how that's possible as autism is a developmental condition. Taking an online questionnaire doesn't prove anything.

I couldn’t say that I know children who only displayed traits in their teens, but I do know several boys for whom puberty & hormones greatly exacerbated their challenges.

My son has always had traits but they were hand waved away by school and others.

Age 10 is when he started diverging more obviously from his peers.

Social interactions became more complex and nuanced and he just couldn't keep up.

Puberty started brewing so there were challenges there too.

10 sounds about right for everything to start being a bit more obvious.

That's just my experience.

My son was diagnosed age 14 after a tricky few years.

Even if he is autistic, it was not his MMR that caused it.

Sorry I posted too soon. Agree that it can become more obvious as they become older, but it will have always been there.

My son was picked up around y2 but his teacher was the senco and it wasn't until y5 or so when most of staff could see it, as they get older the quirks and divergence becomes more obvious.

@Shakirasma

Even if he is autistic, it was not his MMR that caused it.

I know this, but I'm having difficulty convincing him that because he's reading all the negative stuff about the Covid vaccine and putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5! I think he's looking for something to blame (he has form for this).

My DS (25) has Aspergers and has had his 1st vaccination and is waiting impatiently for his second.

I believe that Autism is in family genes and is not MMR related at all.

Your DS is being led by antivaccine conspiracy's and this will be EASY for him to take on board as ASD people are easily led unfortunately.

No, it's really not possible. I agree that puberty can exacerbate issues and make them more obvious but also the demands of secondary school, teen socialising, raised expectations with age etc. bring differences with peers to more prominance and also add stresses that can lead to more unusual behaviors.
Andrew Wakefield was struck off for falsifying research data.
Looking back I can see that DS2, who is also High Functioning, had signs as a baby, I didnt realise until he was at Primary school. Now he's at uni he's back to "passing" as NT unless you are good at spotting the signs.
You and your DS may have missed signs early on but I bet experts and experienced parents of children on the spectrum would have spotted it, i know i have with other people's kids but I'm very careful not to say anything unless I'm asked and even then i am guarded. (By the way, i dont necessarily count learning support staff at school as experts).

My DS was diagnosed at 11 by the way.

I’d point out to him the fact. Andrew Wakefield was struck off the medical register because he wrote about a study of eight (yes, just eight!) children who he purported to have a link between MMR and ASD. It was then revealed that he had been paid to provide evidence for parents of autistic children suing vaccine manufacturers for compensation. He was completely discredited and is considered a disgrace to the medical profession.

Thousands of adults are being diagnosed.

The thing is, doing an online test isn't indicative of a diagnosis. The majority of them are absolute nonsense and o my look for the stereotypical traits, which if your son had, you would absolutely know about.

I'm autistic and could do online tests all day long and score too 'low' because I don't fit the algorithm. It's all crap and not a substitute for an actual assessment.

DS is 10. Diagnosis 18m ago, referral about 3y ago. He masks well and can blend with NT behaviours, and I find that the differences open and close between him and expectations of his age group as he develops at his slightly alternative pathway.

When I mindmapped all his traits, quirks, talents and challenges to take to the GP, I ended up dredging up all kinds of random stuff that wasn't necessarily a trait on its own or massively out of normal developmental age, but as a big picture it was all there rught back to being a baby. Things like having a "tantrum" if I drew the car-transporter-steam-train wrong with the wrong number of wheels or the cars at the wrong angle. Every single week, for months and months and months. Not that odd in a two year old, but actually it was an early manifestation of his rigidity of thought. The autism wasn't new at 7, he was just continuing to have major blowout meltdowns long after he should have grown out of it.

Autism seems to be genetic, it certainly does turn up through families. It's about brain development and pathways. It is there or not there and is not triggered externally by things like vaccines (although other conditions such as attachment disorders can present with overlapping traits)

As for the Wakefield thing. Active research to either confirm or deny his paper has been taking t place for over 20 years. They haven't found anything.

My DD has a (male) friend who was diagnosed with autism in Year Six, so aged about eleven. In hindsight, he had been showing signs for years. But it wasn't until he reached this age that it became really obvious. As an example - not being able to sequence the steps for dressing yourself at six = quirky. Not being able to do it at ten = probably neurodivergent. So he was always the person that he is - but at a younger age the signs could be dismissed.

AS like ADD is genetic (several genes have been indentified) my DS represents the 4th generation of AS in my family.
The names / labels have changed over time (1st description as a seperate condition etc.), the amount of problems the condition caused for the society the AS person has to function in has changed - but it is definitely not caused by external circumstances.
DS as had his 2nd vacc without so much as a sore arm.

AS-like behaviours are not the same as AS, and may have other causes. That is why the process of diagnosis is so multi-layered and takes a lot of time. Self-identification is not enough, but the romanticizing of conditions is a thing.

Could you talk about the traits he has, and give him examples of how they presented in his earlier years? It's the kind of information that will be helpful should he eventually wish to get diagnosed, so a helpful conversation whatever he takes from it.

Have you spoken to him about how you know if information you can find online is reliable or if it’s biased?

Maybe take it from a logical view point and look at what information is out there about autism and why some is more reliable than others.

Is this a one off or does he like conspiracy theories and things like that?

My dd was diagnosed at 16. Things became obvious at age 13 when she had a breakdown and developed crippling anxiety seemingly over night.
With hindsight there were signs earlier but it definitely wasn't obvious.
She is 17 now and she had periods where she is quite obviously autistic, stimming, meltdowns, struggling with executive function, and periods where I start doubting her diagnosis as she appears neurotypical and is coping with life.
The autism is there under the surface though and the diagnosis helped as it is easier to support her. When she is well supported she has more of the 'good' periods.

I think it's actually quite common for children with high functioning autism to cope quite well at primary school but to start to struggle when they get to secondary school. Social interactions become more complex as children reach their teens and also there are much higher expectations of children to be more independent and organise their school work without help at that age so the differences between autistic children and their peers can become more noticeable and more of a problem.
I would ask him if the MMR is responsible for causing autism, what caused it in people who were autistic before the MMR was introduced? Maybe help.him look at some of the genuine research. Mothers who have auto-immune conditions are more likely to have children with ASD, for instance. There's also some very interesting new research around the role of gut bacteria and the microbiome.
My DS was diagnosed with autism when he was 15. He was always a bit different but it only started to cause him issues around the end of primary and beginning of secondary (so around age 10!). Due to another condition he's already had two doses of the Pfizer with no side-effects, if that helps, but it may be that you will have to let your DS choose not to have the vaccine if it's causing him too much anxiety.

My DS tried to hang himself at 9 years old. School was awful for him. It broke my heart. I ended up being a "Warrior Mum" and fighting the LEA to get him into a specialist school. They took it to the wire, they conceded 12 hours before Tribunal.

@Foobydoo "and periods where I start doubting her diagnosis as she appears neurotypical and is coping with life."

WOW! That so rings true for me.

My question would be why would he think that the MMR was responsible? if he properly researches the link between MMR/Autism it is proven that the Andrew Wakefield’s claims are not true and the links were created by him and his reports.
I have a 21 year old DS with autism, I also didn’t vaccinate when he was young (due to the same worries at that time) however he did show signs at 5 and got a DX at 6.
I got him vaccinated when he was about 10 as by then the Andrew Wakefield theory had been blown out the water.
I can’t believe that he (AW) still has such a high profile in America and that so many people still believe his shit, and so many autistic children are still being harmed because of this man!
I would suggest you maybe go onto the NAS website and read up a bit more about the traits of autism/Aspergers, many girls are not picked up until they are in their late teens/ twenties because they are good and masking and social conforming, maybe your son was similar.
As a teen my son hung out with a quirky group and didn’t really stand out as different in many ways, his differences were more obvious when younger, but if he’d not had a DX he would have been considered at times to be difficult, disruptive, stubborn, but a lot of the time he didn’t seem any different than many young children, certainly at times I wondered if other children in our primary school may have been on the spectrum, but if they don’t display what is considered to be bad/disruptive behaviour they won’t necessarily get picked up.
I hope your DS finds a way to feel comfortable with himself, maybe he needs some support to help him work out what he feels about the DX.
My DS has full ownership of his DX and is very comfortable about it, he chooses if he discloses it or not, often he doesn’t as he does think it’s relevant.
There are lots of good knowledgable organisation that could help.

Thanks all.

If I look back he was always 'quirky' and I realise that there were so many other things going on when he was at primary school that I attributed some of his traits/anxieties to (issues with his dad mostly).

Re the online assessment - I'm not using that as a substitute diagnosis but he is. And at this stage, he's decided that he doesn't want to be 'put in a box' with a diagnosis.

The puberty thing is interesting. He was a very late developer and only started puberty at about 15 so that would make sense.

@Whatinthelord he's not normally a conspiracy theorist. Covid has worsened all of his traits - he's barely left the house other than for exercise and has retreated into an online world. I've tried to talk to him about a lot of the autism research but he's got very strong opinions and only trusts his own 'research'. He's VERY distrustful of other people's opinions.

@Unreasonabubble sorry to hear that, that sounds awful